November 15, 2007

New Landmark Herodotus Edition

First off, I’d better warn you that unless geography sometimes gives you a boner, you shouldn’t read this article. The new Landmark Herodotus is out. Thucydides’ readers might know Landmark for their big ol’ annotated edition of the History Of The Peloponnesian War. I’ve always preferred Herodotus’ Histories on the 5th century’s Persian War because it speaks less about who battled whom where and speaks more about the religious, psychological and sexual issues surrounding kings.

It wasn’t until I returned to Herodotus about a month ago that I got excited about deltas, rivers and seas. Herodotus calls the river Halys the neck of Asia. It “divides nearly all of Asia between those regions in the South, facing the sea toward Cyprus, and those northern regions facing the Euxine [Black] Sea. It is here that the neck of the whole continent lies; it can be crossed by a man traveling without heavy baggage in five days.” Cyrus the Great, the half-Median/half-Persian “mule” whose reign was prophesied by oracles, spread his empire from the Mediterranean to modern day Iran, where he was defeated by the savage Massagetae. Early in Cyrus’ conquest, the pre-Socratic philosopher Thales had divided the river Halys into two channels so that it would be shallow enough for Cyrus’ army to cross. Later on, before Cyrus sacked Babylon by diverting the river that ran through that city, Cyrus’ horse fell into the Gyndes river. This made Cyrus angry, so he punished the Gyndes Cyrus by dividing it into 180 channels. Beautiful stuff, all of it.

Am I holding your attention? “There’s dick jokes on the way. Please Relax.” Every edition of Herodotus will have stories about a blind dude getting a golden shower, a girl having sex with a goat in public and an Egyptian Pharaoh who whores out his daughter to build a pyramid. Landmark editions are great because they give you lots of helpful maps, contemporary art and photos of modern remains, all embedded in the text! It’s nice to have some visual help in a book with so many words. A great, smart read to hole yourself up with this winter.

Comments

If this sort of thing makes you sport wood, Nash, might I recommend a good psychologist and/or a copy of John McPhee's "Basin and Range". The first can help locate you in the DSM, the second is pure magic for those so afflicted (grin). Frieze2 had me chuckling all day...

An equally amazing story, in a lesser volume and not part of the Landmark series, is the epic tale called The Anabasis (of Cyrus). This by Xenophon. This is not the same Cyrus, this is his grandson, and the tale of 10,000 Hoplites trampling their way through a hostile Persia, is awe inspiring partly because you start to realize what it means to be a 10,000 man army.